Hey Danny, I was hoping to hear a song of yours on the CD, but I can wait until Volume II...

The basic tools of the absintheur are essentially a spoon, glass, sugar cube, chilled water, and absinthe. None of the other objects are actually necessary to prepare the drink, but they are imperative for instigating a type of visual hypnosis and bringing richness to the ceremony.--Betina J. Wittels

I might have more suitable insturmental jams with my new band SBD that might be suitable that I can send you
we're kindof on a different wavelength than No Arrow and are more experimental and it might suit the absinthe mood more suitable...I can send you a few tracks to get the feel of it if you want

Sure. Email mp3s to me at wsmusicproject@yahoo.com and I'll put them on the MySpace page. Send whatever you want. (But just so's you know, I do really like Colderside of the Sun)

The "absinthe mood" that you're trying to make music for is your own. I'm sure you can tell from listening to my music that I have a different idea of it than many other people. Don't feel like everything has to be atmospheric and mellow unless that's what makes sense to you. One of the goals this time around is greater diversity.

Agreed. I'd definitely love to see Colderside as a submission myself. It's kinda rockin' but suitable for absinthe drinking for sure. Don't forget though, according to the guidelines each person can submit up to 3 tracks, so if you have new stuff you wanna share...

As of now I'm uploading a track of mine to see what people think. It's technical death metal with a little bit of brutal thrown in. No vocals yet, no lyrics and thus no title. Very incomplete but before finishing it I want to see if anyone thinks it's not appropriate for the project. That might determine which direction I go with lyrics.

Peridot: I dig it. A lot, actually. My favorite thing of yours I've heard yet. And shit, anything's appropriate if this is what you'd sip to. As a suggestion, I'd love it if there were some out-and-out screaming vocals in this one. I just can't get past the cookie monster vocal style, though I know it's what typically expected here. Just balls-out howling madness with a vocal distressor or some mild distortion would break the mold. Those 16th note high hats already give it an industrial sort of sound, so it's just begging for it. That's just me, so take it with a grain of salt. Or sugar...

Babble: That's some weird stuff, man. It does sound like something out of an avant garde 70s film or something. It's those wild-ass, unsettling, repetitive guitar chords. Almost like something I would expect to see accompanying The Repulsion. I would change that first blast of general MIDI-sounding horns if it were me, though. The cluster of cacophonous notes is cool in and of itself, but there's a cheese factor to that particular synth sound that kind of wrecked the mood for me. If you can flag down another sample set somehow, it might help things out. I might even be able to hook you up, if you're interested. Then again, it's your thing, man. You might have wanted that sound.

In case you haven't noticed, I hate giving people suggestions as much as I hate getting them when I don't want to hear them, so please -- ignore me if this any of these come off as preachy or snooty. That's not my intention at all. I'm in no position to tell anyone how to write their own music. It's really easy to hurt someone's feelings when they've really worked their ass off on something.

Edited by precenphix, 21 January 2010 - 06:40 PM.

Those with knowledge easily sense the truth of things. Those with egos built up on rumor and fancy, tend to maintain a hard line. - Tatan (Evan Camomile)

Peridot: I dig it. A lot, actually. My favorite thing of yours I've heard yet. And shit, anything's appropriate if this is what you'd sip to. As a suggestion, I'd love it if there were some out-and-out screaming vocals in this one. I just can't get past the cookie monster vocal style, though I know it's what typically expected here. Just balls-out howling madness with a vocal distressor or some mild distortion would break the mold. Those 16th note high hats already give it an industrial sort of sound, so it's just begging for it. That's just me, so take it with a grain of salt. Or sugar...

Thanks. I may utilize some higher pitched screams, but really I am a death metal vocalist. The deep bellowing stuff is what I'm best at, and also what I like best, so they tend to be my bread and butter while I use other vocal styles more peripherally. The drums aren't meant to sound industrial, but at the fastest section they're going 340bpm, which just turns them into pure mechanical noise. The riffing is the fastest and most technical I've ever recorded.

I would change that first blast of general MIDI-sounding horns if it were me, though. The cluster of cacophonous notes is cool in and of itself, but there's a cheese factor to that particular synth sound that kind of wrecked the mood for me.

For me the horns are fine; they fit that 70s suspenseful mood. The one thing that I would look into would be a more realistic and more three dimensional drum sound.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm always open to hear about what people think about what I create. Some of it will make sense to me but some of it won't. As for the cheesy MIDI sounds I would have loved to use some more realistic/organic sounding instruments. The MIDI is what I had access to at the the time and when it was finished I thought it wasn't that bad.

As for the drums. They were intentionally not meant to sound like real drum beats. I used them more as ornamentation rather than backing up everything else.... make sense? They were real drums though, I just used them in a very unrealistic way.

Thanks again for the feedback. Peridot, looking forward to listening to your new upload later today.

Oh, I didn't mean that the drum arrangement or composition needs any work; that's perfectly fine as-is and suits the work. I meant the actual drum samples or sound font. I'm surprised that they are real becuase they sound very midi.

Babble: I love how weird the main theme is. In fact, I think I laughed with glee! I'm a little odd in that way, though--I find things funny that others may not. And vice versa.

peridot: I dig this. The more I hear of metal, the more I realize I'm a tech-/avant- type of listener, and this satiates my love of the former. (Can you believe I only just heard Meshuggah? Catch Thirtythree is sooooo good!)

"The Saint when he is drinking/Is also pleasing God/As if he were praying and singing." - Angelus Silesius, quoted in Simmel's On Individuality and Social Forms, p.391. (Yay for classical sociology!)

"Full bottle in front of me/Time to roll up my sleeves and get to work/And after many glasses of work/I get paid in the brain" - They Might Be Giants "Your Own Worst Enemy."

Meshuggah are pretty great. Catch33 really fixed a big problem I had had with them up until that point, their lack of melodic complexity. Incredible rhythmic complexity has been a part of their sound for years, but the fact that they did most of it with two chord riffs for several albums straight became boring to me.

If you like technical metal you should look into Spiral Architect, second to none. And if you want to see how very technical brutal death metal can be, check out Origin.

I'm working with some cab sims to see if I can get my guitars sounding a bit beefier.

Oh, I didn't mean that the drum arrangement or composition needs any work; that's perfectly fine as-is and suits the work. I meant the actual drum samples or sound font. I'm surprised that they are real becuase they sound very midi.

Yes, I realized before I came back here that I might haue misunderstood your point. I understand now that you meant a more fuller drum sound (i.e. threeD) would suit it better. And I do agree. I originally recorded the demo for this on a four-track tape recorder. It was all recorded in one go while drinking absinthe to try and capture what I was feeling at that time. I thought the demo captured that moment very well. And then awhile after that I re-did the piece properly into the version I sent you. And let me tell you that it was extremely difficult to recreate that piece since it was done spontaneously and that it was entirely improvised. One of the things about the original that I liked the most were the drums, particularly the snare rolls. When recreating I just couldn't maintain that magic that was on the original with the drums. They weren't as "three-D" sounding as the original. Ironically the original drums were MIDI. The drums on the version you here are sampled from a real drum kit (I did the samples myself instead of the just downloading them) and edited them together. All in all though I thought my recreation was pretty good, the best it was going to be at least and there's no way I will attempt to do it again. The song is finished.

I was a bit hesitant to submit the sample because I knew it was not as professional sounding as the tunes on the first disc. I wasn't sure it would belong. But I did it because I need to start putting my stuff out there more and because it was very much influenced by absinthe. If it doesn't make it onto the cd that's fine with me. I'll just be happy if someone enjoys it.

Babble: I love how weird the main theme is. In fact, I think I laughed with glee! I'm a little odd in that way, though--I find things funny that others may not. And vice versa.

It all started with that main theme and I completely understand how you could find it "funny". It does haue somewhat of a little kid/carnival sound to it... heck its hard to describe but I know what you mean. I'm glad I put a smile on your face.

There's a reason: it's vastly more difficult to compose something worthwhile than to give it good production. The world is littered with terrible music disguised by a great sound. A great and well-played composition is just that no matter how it's dressed. Now, if it can be made to sound all slick and full then by all means do it, but it's definitely a tertiary concern.

Ha, thanks. I originally did that track as an exercise in excess, so I threw to the side my normal concern about how realistic it would be to ask a drummer to play it. I'll throw vocals on it when I get my condenser mic back from the studio where it's being used as an overhead while we record drums.

For shits and giggles, mostly based on your mentioning Corpsegrinder for vocals, I uploaded another track called Necrotic Cyst. This one is squarely in the brutal death metal genre and features the beautiful tone of my own golden pipes. A few pretty technical parts, but nothing as flashy as the other track, however I actually like it more and it can give y'all an idea of what kind of vocals will be featured on the untitled track. I'm probably going to only submit one death metal song, while doing a couple very different things for the other submissions. So at this very, very early phase I'll let y'all decide which of the two is better. This way, if everyone thinks the death metal shit doesn't work with the rest of the CD I will have only blown one submission on it.

Oh, and I'm probably going to do at least one really mellow track. I was mostly doing stuff that went back and forth from heavy to mellow on the first compilation, and I think it will be fun to distill the two moods.

Babble (and everyone else)--keep on musicking! I'm loving this group of creative folks we have here. It's odd that absinthe should attract so many creative types...

Meshuggah are pretty great. Catch33 really fixed a big problem I had had with them up until that point, their lack of melodic complexity. Incredible rhythmic complexity has been a part of their sound for years, but the fact that they did most of it with two chord riffs for several albums straight became boring to me.

If you like technical metal you should look into Spiral Architect, second to none. And if you want to see how very technical brutal death metal can be, check out Origin.

I can see that. I'll be listening to their other stuff soon, but Catch33 is my first and will likely be my only.

Origin is/are fun! I have to admit I'm not as partial to blast beats as other drum structures, but don't tell Mick Harris that.

Composition is far more important than production, at least in my book.

Most definitely. Interestingly, I've found I can't enjoy a good composition if it's produced in a manner that I don't like. Weird. Two electronic groups that compose well, yet I can't listen to are Plaid and Orbital. They both sound so damned cheesy to me, and not in a good way.

I kinda wish Spiral Architect was produced like Origin.

"The Saint when he is drinking/Is also pleasing God/As if he were praying and singing." - Angelus Silesius, quoted in Simmel's On Individuality and Social Forms, p.391. (Yay for classical sociology!)

"Full bottle in front of me/Time to roll up my sleeves and get to work/And after many glasses of work/I get paid in the brain" - They Might Be Giants "Your Own Worst Enemy."

Well, that Spiral Architect album is 10 years old. At that time only a few Norwegian metal bands were getting to the point of having good production. If they do a new one, which they've been on and off working on for years now, it will sound a lot better.

I'm a blast beat fanatic, but to me it's more about what part is appropriate than anything else. It's hard for me to imagine most Origin guitar parts without blast beats.

The song opens with a blast beat (and uses it through most of the song).

A blast beat is a 16th or 32nd note back and forth between snare and a cymbal, usually high hat or ride. The classic blast beat uses a single bass drum, hitting at the same time as the cymbal, while a more typical modern blast beat uses double bass drumming to hit under both the cymbal and the snare.

It's the most ubiquitous component of extreme metal. So much so that there's starting to be a little bit of a backlash against it, because it's "overused" and "boring." I violently disagree. Blast beats make me smile.